


The Kiss of an Angel

by thereyoflight



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - World War I, Chance Meetings, Crisis of Faith, F/M, Kissing, Love at First Sight, One Shot, Religious Discussion, War, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22872268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thereyoflight/pseuds/thereyoflight
Summary: Peter was sure he had kissed an angel.
Relationships: Michelle Jones & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, petermj - Relationship, spideychelle - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	The Kiss of an Angel

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired heavily by the film 1917 (2019), dir. Sam Mendes, written by Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns.

Peter was sure he had kissed an angel.

To come to this conclusion was a feat within itself as he had never been one for religion or any faith in a higher power. And yet, Peter had never been more sure of anything in his life. There was no evidence to support this idea, but there was also no evidence to refute it. For the first time in his life, Peter felt a sense of faith, an assurance and hope in something unseen of which he was sure was present. Of which he was sure had touched him, chosen him, perhaps, in some way.

It was during the Great War, in 1917.

Peter’s legs were burning with every stride that propelled him forward, but there was no stopping. Stopping would be certain death. He moved forward, breath heavy with exhaustion and exertion, swallowing down the fear that rose up within him. Hurried footsteps followed behind him, an unspoken threat being spoken into the air with each one he heard. Each one was a promise of his life being snuffed out like the light of a candle if he allowed them to reach him. 

He caught sight of a board beneath a building. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly that caused him to react so quickly, but Peter found himself falling toward it. He delivered a hard kick to it, opening it up enough to allow his body through, before it shut behind him. Peter watched with wide eyes as the soldiers after him continued their chase after his invisible shadow. 

He breathed a sigh of relief and turned on his heel to see the space before him engulfed in warm light. Alarmed, his eyes scanned over the area. There was a mattress on the ground, a worn pillow and blanket atop it. He came to the terrifying conclusion that he wasn’t alone just as shadows shifted in his peripheral vision.

Peter turned sharply, raising his rifle and pointing it directly where he had seen motion. His eyes took in not a soldier, but to his surprise, a woman. His stance faltered at the sight, but a second thought is all it took for him to keep his weapon raised and ready. One could never be too certain.

He couldn’t help drinking in her appearance. Even with a weapon raised at her and the fear in her eyes, she was stunning. She wore a long, battered blue dress underneath a white apron adorned with a red cross. Her hair was dark, a mess of curls with its own nature that she so clearly tried to contain by tying it back in a knot. Curls that had come free curled around her face with elegance, framing her face in such a way that made him sure he’d come across a saint. Her eyes were dark, but as warmly colored as her hair, even with the stricken look they portrayed. She looked young, as young as he was, with the same small frame and childlike face he was sure mirrored his own. With the same stolen innocence, ravaged by a war bigger than themselves.

Suddenly, closing in on him was the harsh truth of why he found her appearance so enamoring yet foreign. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman or been in the presence of one. It must have been three years prior, just before he had been dispatched, on the train platform in what felt like a decade ago. After so many months, things blended together so closely that he had nearly forgotten he didn’t live in a world that had only known the monsters of men.

Her hands were raised before her, eyes pleading. “Please, it’s okay,” she whispered. 

Peter lowered his weapon, embarrassed and ashamed to have caused her any fear. He moved slightly, ignoring the pounding in his head from his fall, and she flinched. He raised his arms up in surrender, his weapon held firmly in one hand. Her eyes followed his as he set the weapon down on the ground. “Friend,” he assured her.

The crouch he found himself in in order to reassure her caused his vision to spin, and Peter stumbled. He held himself upright by catching himself on his hands and knees. The woman reacted immediately, rushing to his side. “Oh, my god,” she exclaimed. “Are you okay?”

Peter blinked away his dizziness. 

“Here, please, sit down,” she encouraged, guiding him into a seating position with her hand on his shoulder. He allowed her touch to guide him to where he needed to be and breathed a sigh of relief when he finally sat down. He didn’t realize he’d been leaning into her touch until she removed her hand as her attention shifted to something else.

He shuddered violently as her fingertips grazed along the edge of his head wound. She whispered an apology, her breath tickling his ear. She moved behind him and before he could turn to look, she was pressing a damp cloth to his head. He let out a breath and closed his eyes. It was an odd feeling to finally feel safe somewhere, to finally be cared for. Though he had no reason to trust her, he felt as if he could. As far as he knew, she was on his side anyway.

All that could be heard between them was their breath, in and out. There was a strange intimacy to it, one he had never experienced before.

Her hand laid firm against his head, her other resting on his shoulder. “Soldier,” she whispered, her breath tickling his ear, “where are you from?”

“London,” he replied, eyes still closed as he leaned into her touch. “And you?”

“Just about,” she answered. “Do you have a family waiting for you?”

He thought of Aunt May and the letter of hers he kept safely tucked underneath the many layers of his uniform. He swore he could feel the words she’d written to him, the only family she had left, burning through the fabric of his uniform just then, searing through to his skin. He thought of the warmth of her heart and character and how desperately he wanted to return to her.

Just as quickly as the thought came, he pushed it away far into the depths of his mind. He knew better than to let his mind wander to his life before; it would only be safe to get caught up in it once he returned. For Peter to complete his mission well, he could not allow himself to be in two places at once. His entire mind, heart, soul, and being needed to be exactly where his feet were and nowhere else. It was the only way. 

“No,” he said. “Just my aunt. No one else.”

“I pray you come back to her, soldier,” she said.

“I pray the same for you, to whoever waits for you.”

A small silence fell over them before she broke it. “Here, hold this, you need water.”

Peter’s hand brushed over hers as her hand slipped away from his head. He opened his eyes. She stood to her feet and retrieved a bottle from beside the bed. She crouched before him and pressed it to his lips. He wanted to refuse her so she could keep it for herself, but she was already pouring it into his mouth. The feeling of water running into his mouth and down his throat felt like a gift after going nearly two days without it.

“Thank you,” he whispered. 

She offered him a small smile. 

As he looked at her, he thought, _I must be dying or you must be an angel, or both._

There was a small cry, and both of their attentions turned sharply to the dark corner of the room. Peter was able to make out the silhouette of a dresser with an open drawer. With a start, he realized there was a child laying in it. 

The woman stood to her feet, and Peter couldn’t help but follow her. She turned the lamp to burn ever brighter, bathing the room in more light. She took the child into her arms, an infant, and knelt down on the bed. Peter could only stare at the sight before him.

The baby, round and soft, looked up at him with curious eyes. Peter was left in awe and wonder at the miracle of life before him. They were in the middle of a battlefield, hidden away from the violence and death spewing on above them, and here was a child. It was an exact contrast of everything happening around them, this tiny hope of a human brimming with life. 

Peter knelt down in front of them with care as he blinked away tears. He wasn’t sure why he suddenly felt so touched by the existence of a child in the time they were in, but he couldn’t deny the emotion that rose up inside of him at the sight of the child looking up at him with a careful gaze. 

The woman smiled brightly at him, revealing a set of perfectly shaped teeth. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”

He reached out his hand to the child in encouragement. “What’s her name?” Peter asked.

The woman shifted, placing the child comfortably on her lap. “I don’t know.”

Peter looked over at her at the response to see her face etched with conflict. It said everything he needed to know, and the correlation this child’s life to his own left his heart aching in his chest. 

The child reached back to him and grasped his index finger with a tiny hand. Peter chuckled lightly at the contact and extended the rest of his fingers in welcome. The child offered a grunt in reply, and Peter could feel eyes on him. He turned his gaze to the woman’s to find her studying his features, looking over his face with interest. 

Their gaze lingered over each other for a moment that felt like a lifetime. 

“Milk,” he said suddenly. “I have milk. For the child.”

Peter turned back to his pack, opening it and pulling out the jug he used to drink water from. Just hours before, he had filled it with milk he had found on an abandoned farm. He pressed it into the woman’s hands, holding it firm in reassurance as his eyes found hers again. He found them to be brimming with tears, and she placed her free hand over the one atop her other. 

“Thank you.”

“I have more food that you should have,” he said, turning again to his pack. When she started to object, he continued, “No, please, I insist.”

Peter laid out more than half of his packaged food onto the bed, leaving the smaller portions for himself if he dared to eat them. He always ate enough to satiate his hunger and keep his energy levels at a manageable place since he was never sure when he would come across more food. Most of the salvaging he had done in desperation was laid out before him, but it felt like no sacrifice. He didn’t even need to think twice about it because he knew it was the right thing to do. 

The woman placed her hand against his cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered. “A thousand times, thank you.”

Peter shook his head. “No, thank you,” he said, his hand coming up over her own against his cheek. “You helped me. Thank you.”

In the distance, he heard a clock chiming. It was all it took to bring him back to reality. He should be going.

“I must go,” he said, struggling to his feet.

“No, please,” she said, standing. “You should rest.”

“I need to go.”

The woman gently laid the child back in the drawer and turned to face him, eyes pleading. “Stay.”

Peter hesitated for a moment. “I wish I could,” he said, “but I have a duty.”

She nodded and approached him. He watched her in silence and her every step brought her closer to him. He couldn’t help his attraction to her and how easily he noticed the beauty in her sheer existence. 

She stopped barely an arms distance away from him. “Soldier, may I bless you with a kiss?”

He was surprised at her words. “A kiss?”

“Yes, a kiss.”

Peter knew she wasn’t playing him for a fool just by the way she was looking at him. He blinked. How could he deny such an offer? The thought of her lips against his left him breathless, and yet, he still managed to breathe out the word, “Yes.”

With that, the woman cupped his cheeks, closed the distance between them, and pressed a kiss to his lips. Peter responded, wrapping his arms around her in a gentle embrace. It was her that kissed him harder, deeper, in such a way that left him dizzy and he couldn’t blame his head for it. It was more passionate and sensual than the kisses he had received from even his fiercest of lovers, and yet, the kiss was steeped in something far deeper. 

She opened his mouth with her own, breathing into his open mouth for the briefest moment. Their tongues touched, and something primal, long buried and unthought of, awoke in him at the action. Peter gasped against her lips, knowing full well he was at her mercy, and allowed her to trace his lips with her own with the welcoming euphoria that spilled into him with every kiss. 

If he could describe it as anything, it would be ravenous and hungry, but not in the ways he had known those kisses to be. There was something far different in the way her lips moved against his, almost as if she was giving him something, breathing something into him that he didn’t quite know of. Something he was taking from her with desperation, as if subconsciously, he knew he needed it.

It was later on that Peter was convinced she was breathing life into him. 

She pulled away, a light in her eyes touched with desire. Had he been another man, he was sure he would’ve taken her there in the warm light of enemy territory. He pushed the thought away, filing it away in a private, secret place he could think about another time, perhaps.

“Goodbye, soldier.”

“Goodbye.”

As he stepped away from her and positioned himself to climb back out the way he’d came, he stole one final glance at her. Her arms hugged around her body, whether for warmth or comfort, he didn’t know, and she looked at him with those beautiful, angelic eyes of hers. She smiled that same small smile from before, and he smiled back. 

“Best of luck to you, madam.”

“And you, soldier.”

With a solemn nod, Peter gripped the edge of the stone and disappeared into the night. 

+

Days bleed into weeks that morph into months. They were nearing the end of the war if it wasn’t already the end, and Peter knew he shouldn’t be alive.

There were so many moments in which he was sure he should’ve died. The bullet that grazed his head, the explosion that took out all the men in the vicinity except him, the decision to go in another direction than the one previously considered. Too many moments in which he should’ve died that he did not.

After his encounter with the woman and the child all those months ago, Peter had found himself unable to stop thinking about it. He glazed over each little moment he remembered in his head everyday -- the touch of her hand against his head, her voice hanging in the air, the lively look in her eyes, her lips against his. He thought himself to be quite foolish to not have asked for her name as there was a slim chance to none that he would ever be able to find her again, this mystery woman that had left a scathing mark on his heart, of whom he’d barely known. How was it possible that such a small interaction, with one unlikely overwhelming kiss, could leave such a lasting impression on someone?

Peter had become sure that she was an angel, sent to help and protect him. He had encountered death closely in the months that followed, as anyone would in any war, but he was lucky. He was sure that he was being protected by something otherworldly, something he couldn’t quite place. Sometimes he swore he could feel it in his bones. That kiss, traveling with him, sustaining him, protecting him at every turn. 

There was so much beauty in the moments he shared with the stranger that he couldn’t possibly come to any other conclusion. Did such kindness and selflessness still exist in the world he lived in? He prayed that one day he would learn the truth.

“Osborn,” Peter called to a fellow soldier. “Do you believe in angels?”

They were shrouded in darkness. Night had fallen, and Peter’s entire body was nearly pressed against Harry Osborn’s. Osborn was a soldier Peter had grown closely acquainted with over the course of the war, and they spoke to each other the most. It was also at night, especially the ones he’d be blessed with sleep, when Peter thought of the unnamed woman the most.

“Angels?” Harry asked. “Like from heaven? God’s angels?”

“Well, what other ones are there?” Peter asked in reply.

Harry was silent for a moment. “I don’t know, Parker, but you might as well get some sleep with the way you’re talking.”

That was the end of that conversation, and it was the first and last time Peter ever brought up such a subject again. Peter couldn’t blame Harry, as he’d grown up scoffing at the same talk his entire life. It was odd to come to a place, after all he’d seen and experienced, where he would even consider the possibility. 

Peter often began to wonder about the unnamed woman as so many things reminded him of her. When sunlight moved over his skin, the warmth reminded him of her eyes. The rare sight of a flower or two brought him back to taking in her appearance for the first time. Peter had become enthralled by the memory of her, or perhaps he was simply going mad. 

Either way, Peter didn’t mind the comfort the memory of their encounter gave him, whether she had truly been an angel, a figment of his imagination, or even less extreme and more probable, a human who had come across him by chance. Her kindness and softness reminded him of another life, one that seemed a lifetime ago: there was a life beyond the war, one of hope and promise despite the circumstances, and he wanted to live it. It was a truth he had known all along, but one he had been too afraid to acknowledge in the case he did die in battle. 

That’s the thing about hope, he thought; it was a dangerous thing. For one to hope meant for one to believe in a better tomorrow, a better future, a life outside of one’s circumstances. The fear Peter had always had was that he would hope and face death knowing he would never get what he had hoped to once have again, so he never allowed himself hope. He only allowed himself to survive. 

Now, however, Peter couldn’t be more appalled. He had come to war fully accepting his death, though, of course, he had never let Aunt May know that. Without hope, death was waiting by his side, waiting to claim him, and Peter was always ready, almost begging to be taken early to end his suffering. Now he acknowledged that death was always so close, practically breathing down his neck in hunger and anticipation, but he wouldn’t yield to it unless he was given no other choice. At least with hope he knew he had done everything he could. 

He could see Aunt May again, clear in his mind, waiting for him to come home. He hoped for her, for the only family he had left, and there was the constant promise he had told her before he left echoing through his mind: _I’ll come back, and everything will be okay again, I promise you. It will be like I never left._ Peter held close to those words in the most devastating and dark moments in the war. 

And of course, there was the mysterious woman who constantly haunted his mind, who had taught him about hope again in the first place. Sometimes, in the few times he dreamed, he would see her face before his with her eyes gleaming brightly. He always took these dreams as a reminder, a promise to hold on to, that he would indeed return home. 

Peter opened his eyes as he breathed a sigh of relief. He clutched the gun strapped over his shoulder as he approached the building before him. The Western Front of the battlefield teemed with movement as soldiers were being led to and from the small hospital stationed nearby with nurses at the ready. The war was over, at that point in time, and Peter had not known such exhaustion. He walked onward into the hospital where he hoped to be updated on Osborn’s conditions and even a way to contact Aunt May.

He was glad he had stuck close behind Osborn because he found him quickly. He was being treated for injuries throughout his left leg from shrapnel, thankfully nothing as serious as it could have been, and he smiled and held a thumbs-up at Peter in assurance. Peter nodded at him and went on a mission to find paper and a pen. 

When he finally did, amongst the chaos of the hospital, he scribbled a quick note: _Aunt May, the war is over. I’m okay. I’m coming home, just like I promised. Wait for me. I love you. Peter._ He took a moment to stare down at the note and what he’d written. When he had been dispatched, he would have never imagined that he would be able to write such a thing. Yet, here he was. 

Peter felt tears burn at the back of his eyes at the reality that he was truly coming home, that Aunt May would not lose her only family left. He was coming home, and she would not be alone. It had been his only hope in the last handful of months and it was happening. 

He blinked away the tears and pushed the thoughts away. He sucked in a breath as he folded the note and lifted his head. He tucked it into his uniform, ready to find a way to get it mailed somehow as he wasn’t sure how quickly he would be able to return home when it happened. 

“Soldier!” a voice called.

Peter froze, his ears perking up at the familiar voice. He turned on his heel to see the woman, the same woman from all those months ago, before him. She wore the same outfit, cleaner and better fitted, with her hair pulled back in the very same way. She met him where he was, eager to get out of the pathway of moving people.

Peter felt like he couldn’t breathe for a moment as he took in her appearance once again. His mind was reeling in complete awe at the truth of her existence, breathing and alive before him. She was real after all. 

Before he could say anything, she placed a hand on his shoulder as she leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. His cheeks burned at the contact, and he watched her closely as she pulled away slowly. She lingered closely, and for a moment, Peter was sure she was going to kiss him again like she did the night they met, but she seemed to compose herself and stand back. 

“I suppose my blessing of a kiss worked after all,” she whispered, as if they were the only people in the whole world.

“Indeed, it did,” Peter replied. He was silent for a moment as he regarded her when he noticed the absence of what was once with her. “And the child?”

”Safe,” she replied immediately. “I was able to bring her to safety after the Germans moved on. Because of you. Because of your blessing.”

”I guess my blessing worked after all,” he breathed out, suddenly aware of how close they were.

She let out a small chuckle, and he was stunned by the beauty in her smile. “Indeed,” she agreed, “it did.”

She reached up ever so slowly and touched his hair, barely a ghost of a touch, as she pulled a strand away from his face. Then, she gently placed her hand against his cheek, and Peter leaned into it instinctively. “I’m so glad to see you again,” she confessed. 

Peter only looked at her, and as if suddenly realizing what she was doing and saying, she pulled her hand away. Perhaps it was the fear of all of it making her seem crazy, but if only she knew how deeply he felt the same way. “It’s okay,” he said quickly. “I’m glad to see you again, too.”

“Soldier…” she said again, eyes roaming his face and taking in his features all over again. Her eyes were even more warm and welcoming than he remembered them, and he found himself drowning in their beauty once again.

“Parker,” he said rather breathlessly, extending a hand out to her in greeting. He nearly laughed at the gesture, considering how close they had been moments before and the fact that they had already kissed so passionately once. “Peter Parker.”

“Peter,” she repeated with a smile. The way his name sounded on her lips was heavenly, and now he was sure she was an angel in human form. “Yes, that quite suits you.”

Peter blinked, trying to shake an awe he was sure would never leave him. “Madam?”

She smiled and took his hand, and the touch caused flutters deep in his abdomen. “Nurse Michelle Jones of the British Red Cross,” she introduced as she shook his hand. “How lovely it is to formally meet you, Peter.”

“And you, Michelle.”


End file.
